


Things that divide us

by Zombieheroine



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Enemy Lovers, Love/Hate, M/M, Mutual Pining, Star-crossed, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-13 02:31:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16008419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zombieheroine/pseuds/Zombieheroine
Summary: They are both meant to be and totally impossible.A series of drabbles about things that keep Megatron and Optimus apart.





	1. Distance

**Author's Note:**

> I went through a quite the dry spell with writing, and now I'm slowly getting back on the saddle. These drabbles come from my never-ending feels well about these two and what could have been.

Megatronus had never been careful with his words or about who heard them; his very point was to be heard after all. But not even in his wildest dreams or nightmares had be expected the first outsider to intercept and contact him to be a friendly sympathizer from Iacon. 

“Be careful who hears you,” said the short, simple message that came from the coordinates of the capital but with the exact location discreetly encrypted, “there are audio receptors everywhere.” 

The location might have been encrypted, but the fact that his ideas had been heard and carried to the bot contacting him told him that this was someone working at the other end of those audio receptors. A sympathizing white-collar worker, or perhaps even a government official was something Megatronus definitely hadn’t expected, but now that one had presented themselves he felt a rush of power and confidence. 

Even bots in Iacon needed to hear his ideas. They needed them too, and suddenly the entire planet was an open possibility for him. It was thrilling. 

He started to craft his response in this thrilled state of mind, even though they were so far away and probably in the middle of a busy workday. Iacon was so far away, it suddenly felt. Megatronus wanted to speak to this bot immediately.


	2. Class

After the match the arena's black sand was cloddy and wet with energon. Megatronus raised his sword and strode around the arena, letting himself soak up the thundering noise and the piercing lights of the arena, the proof that he lived to fight another day. 

He lived for these moments. These moments proved his singularity as well as claimed him a place here among Kaonians, via both his skill and strength, and only with current soaring through his heated systems he felt alive and his spark one with his form. 

He stared the roaring crowd down as he did his victory lap, but eventually he ended up in front of his own corner where both the reserved and special numbered seats were. There sat his fans, his friends and those who bet for his victory, anyone who could afford a seat there or was otherwise granted a ticket. 

And there was Orion Pax, dwarfed by the Kaonians on all sides as well as clearly standing out because of it. When Megatronus finally made his way there and could look past the chain link fence, the glass barrier and the electric safety lines into his audience and search for Orion's gaze, he found that the Iaconian was searching for his too. They locked optics, and Orion's tense expression melted into a relieved smile. 

Orion had been afraid, Megatronus realized. Afraid, and awkwardly tense among the Kaonians enjoying the blood sport, all quiet and neat, a clerk among heavy machienery. 

He was here, but drowning in the mass, and Megatronus couldn't resist the urge to raise his sword, point it towards him in the crowd and call him out: “For you!” 

If the noise had been dying down, now it ignited newly into the storm it had been before with bots left and right arguing where he had been pointing, and then someone figured to respond: “For Kaon!” That singular response was contagious, and soon bots where stomping their pedes and repeating it back until it became a chant: “For Kaon! For Kaon!” 

And behind the fences and electric lines sat the Iaconian, clapping but not knowing how otherwise to join in, even though his smile told he knew that only he had been called.


	3. Alignment

Despite all his talk and energy it was starting to seem that Orion was set on inaction. Megatron was growing impatient with it all, especially since Orion committed to this weakness of his with the same stubbornness as he did to his arguing points. 

Those arguments were as passionate and engaging as ever, that hadn’t changed, but it was becoming clearer and clearer that Orion wasn’t willing to do much to make those ideas a reality. The thing was, as compelling as his arguments were, choosing to not act on them made them as good as nothing. 

Megatron was a mech of action. He had to be. Orion talked in length about preserving peace and order and organizing a system of their own to peacefully fix the system now oppressing them, but Megatron could see no sense in that. 

Talking, walking and peacefully standing his ground had never worked for him, or for anyone in his position for that matter. Orion referenced texts where demonstrations and strikes were called a type of “warfare”, a claim that Megatron found absolutely ridiculous and didn’t care to hide his opinion. But as much as he grinned and laughed, Orion didn’t budge, and despite all the laughter Megatron couldn’t deny how that hurt. On this matter their otherwise perfect connection went mute. 

But what was worse was how bots listened to Orion’s side of the argument, even agreed. And not just a few bots, lots of them. Those, who shied away from practical, concrete action. Those, who sympathized with the authorities. Those, who shied away from the name Decepticons and the betrayal and suffering it bluntly spelled out for them. Those, who preferred to be called Autonomous Bots, like Orion called himself. 

Those who believed in Orion’s ways and his non-violent warfare. But Megatron knew better: demonstrations were ignored or dispersed. Strikers were shot and broken for spare parts. 

There was no other kind of warfare except for warfare. Megatron had chosen to wear a shield of his own and make that point in a way he knew from experience worked: in practice.


	4. Battle

Like everything else, this too kept them apart. There was the invisible yet strikingly real line between mortal enemies. Megatron both loved and hated that line, so challenging and just daring him to confront and fight it, but also impossible to truly reach as it wasn’t something he could physically touch. 

He had to admit it though, Orion was not set on inaction anymore, not since he had gained the Matrix and the Decepticons had pushed the Autobots hard enough, at last sparking the inevitable violence. Some part of Megatron had expected Optimus Prime to be like Orion, and come meet him unarmed, hanging onto his useless pacifism and refusing to fight back until his very end, but Optimus had surprised him. 

Optimus Prime was a commander of an army now. He carried blasters and blades. He fought, and he was lethal. Witnessing that felt like Megatron had managed to make the immovable object to budge, like he was the unstoppable force that had won and thus dictated the rules of this universe and their relationship. Going to battle against Optimus had a pulsing of satisfaction, a breath of _finally_ , as if they had at last become in tuned with each other and spoke the same language. 

The satisfaction in that was sweet, even if the language was violence against each other, a communication that made them as much a matching set as it made them polar opposites. Always together, forever apart. 

And yet, like this they were able to touch. This was enough. It would have to be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we have it, a little drabble series! I've always loved writing little snippets like these around a common theme. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! Leave kudos if you liked this, and maybe drop a comment too. I'd love to hear what you thought about this!


End file.
